I’m realizing I never learned ‘how to learn’ when I was younger. I don’t remember taking a class that taught me how our brain learns new concepts...”How To Learn” wasn’t a class offered by my school.  

It sounds ridiculous but it’s actually kind of alarming.

I think there is an opportunity to make a huge fundamental and positive difference in how kids learn at an early age. On the flip side, I’m a firm believer you can learn how to learn at any age.

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When we learn a new concept our brain is not familiar with, we need a way to connect our existing thoughts/nodes to this new thought. The way to reach this new thought is using a combination of focused mode and diffuse mode (this is the part I was never taught). We usually tend to either focus harder or quit altogether.   However, we’re learning that the answer might be in diffuse mode.

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Diffuse mode is when you relax and take a backseat for a short period. This allows our creative juices to flow, which helps us get closer to wrapping our mind around a new concept. Partly another reason why I’m a huge advocate of meditation.   If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend you watch TED “Learning how to learn” by Barbara Oakley: https://lnkd.in/ehpaENx  

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